High density lessons: How community spaces can help make apartment living more appealing

The world has about 141 billion square metres of housing stock. But it will need to nearly double that by 2030 to house our growing population.

That’s the equivalent of 547 million more Australian-style detached homes – but for many cities, tall buildings are the way of the future. And crowded cities can be made more liveable, according to one expert, if we learn from some of Singapore’s unique buildings.

“Sky gardens” – the green spaces created at height in some building developments across Asia – are one way to help residents manage the potential stresses of high-density living according to Philip Oldfield, senior lecturer in high-performance architecture from UNSW.

The 50-storey residential development has two “sky gardens” — one halfway up the building and the other on the top floor – and both are used and valued by residents as a reprieve from high-density living.

Her firm’s “Table Top Walk-Up” concept is an award-winning modular building system designed to address affordable housing problems in the city.

Developed for New York’s 25-foot lots, the apartments are designed as stackable modules, with larger shared spaces such as landings and balconies providing community areas.

“Instead of trying to pack more people in more densely, it’s how can we create a community within the building itself,” she said.

“When people are starting out – the community should be quite strong, to help each other out. They can learn from each other,” said Ms Von Glinow.

“You could say that we weren’t the most efficient with our use of space, but that is on purpose,” she said, adding that the typical developer response was to maximise the space given to individual apartments.